Squibbiness
by Tanny
Summary: FINALLY UPDATED! 10.12.06. Elinor is a Squib. Who keeps making all the wrong decisions. And a quidditch fanatic. She works for the Chudley Cannons. Thing is, nobody knows that she can't do magic...and if she's not careful, the world might just find out...
1. Hogwarts Summer

Squibbiness

**Disclaimer: Mrs. Rowling and Warner Bros. have the rights to the Harry Potter universe. I own my characters (the people whom you will not recognize, unless they bear a distinct resemblance to a real person, at which point I will insist that any resemblance to a real person is completely accidental and unintentional), my plot (which works its way through any loopholes J.K. Rowling has left for hopeful young fan-fiction writers), and anything else you've never heard of (which you know for a fact does not exist in any other book). **

**Chapter 1: Hogwarts Summer**

I think it started way back when I was eleven. It was the year that Hogwarts sent out all of the letters of acceptance, and I was pining away for mine. Ravenclaw was my life. Mum and Dad had gone there, Uncle Jeff had been a beater on the team, and my big brother Raymond had been sorted into the house two years ago. I had even knitted my own scarves in the official Ravenclaw colours – my obsession ran to the extent of begging Raymond to bring home a piece of the common room. It was the first of many requests that he did not oblige.

                It was late June – the beginning of Hogwarts Summer, as Mum called it. I could vaguely remember Hogwarts Summer from two years before. Raymond had received his letter by owl post. We had all expected it. My big brother had been cursing the garden gnomes since he could hold a wand. Ray was sure to become a Ministry wizard; perhaps even the Minister himself. Or a professor. But I didn't want Ray to become a professor. My reasoning was that if he worked his way into the Ministry of Magic, he could get me free samples from Zonko's and first-rate seats for the Quidditch World Cups. 

                So on this breezy June afternoon, I was sitting in the garden, nursing a mug of iced tea. For weeks I had been reading up all of Dad's old spell-books and trying to turn a geranium into a spotted fig, but I hadn't quite managed it yet. I believe I was attempted something called Transfiguration. Mum came out into the garden with a tray of cookies and more iced tea. As I glanced up from my book to make some remark of welcome, her foot caught on the garden hose and she tripped.

                I leapt up from my chair and stretched out my hand towards her. For a split second, it felt like time paused and we both stared into each other's eyes. If there was a time that my magic would appear, this was it, and we both knew it. A funny tickle ran down the back of my neck, and time unfroze. 

                Mum crashed to the ground and I stood there, staring at her. The iced tea came flying down next, and then the cookies, one by one. Last came the tray, which bounced off the side of her head. Mum fainted, although I'm not sure whether it was the tray or my lack of visible aid. I immediately rushed inside the house and got Dad, who contacted the Wizarding Emergency Service. Mum was diagnosed with shock and a mild concussion. My earliest doubts began to appear that day. I think Mum realized it as well.

                To be fair, she never told Dad what had really happened – about me standing there and not being able to help her. But my time of hiding was nearly up – Raymond was due to come back, and I had no idea of the significance of his return.

                We all trooped down to meet him at King's Cross. The station was packed with squealing tots and anxious mothers. Quite a few younger siblings like myself were there too. I remember spotting Midgie MacClellan, a neighbour and friend of mine.

                "Midgie!" I yelled, waving her over. She ran up to us, a huge grin across her face.

                "Elinor!" she yelled back. I covered my ears. "How're you doing?" she added, in a slightly milder tone of voice.

                "Good," I answered. "You?"  
                "Well as well can be," she answered cheerily. "Guess what?" she said, starting to dance about on the tiled platform floor.

                "What?" I asked. 

                "Guess," she insisted, twirling her long and curly brown hair in one hand.

                "Mab" – her cat – "had kittens?" I suggested.

                "Nope," said Midgie. "Guess again."

                "Mab got sick?" I asked.

                "Nope," said Midgie. "Guess a – "

                "Just tell me!" I cried, annoyed. Midgie always had this awful habit of keeping me guessing forever.

                "I've been accepted into Hogwarts," Midgie sang, prancing about like a delusional kitten.

                "Good," I said, trying to muster up a smile. It really hurt that I hadn't been accepted – of course, my magic hadn't shown up yet, but chances were good. My entire family was wizarding stuff, although we lived in the Muggle world. Being educated in Muggle had been proven not to be detrimental to being a witch or wizard.

                "Aren't you glad!" she grinned. "I hope we get the same house!"

                "Me too," I said hopelessly. I stared at the floor, and noticed that my shoelaces were untied. Fortunately for me, the Hogwarts Express chose to arrive at that moment, so we were both engulfed in a thick fog of steam. I used the steam as an excuse to hurry back to my parents.

                Soon enough, Raymond's head poked through the steam and he dashed over to us, waving madly. "Mum! Dad! Elinor!" he shouted. 

                Most unfortunately, Raymond knocked one of the owl cages off a trolley that was being pushed towards him. The young owner of the owl screamed and Raymond scrambled to retrieve the cage. But even more unfortunately, the trolley wheel caught on the cage and released the latch. The owl came barreling out of the cage, straight at… me.

                I also screamed as the owl clawed at my face, and in my struggle to rid myself of the maddened creature, I lunged forward in the vague direction of my brother.

                Had I been a normal wizarding child, none of the following would have happened. I would have been perfectly safe. Instead, my shoelaces – I always neglected to tie them – got caught in the wheels of another trolley. The confusion caused several more trolleys to crash, which sent me dangerously and unwittingly close to the edge of the platform. The owl screeched some more, and I did not see or hear the trolley coming at me. It slammed into my stomach and I tipped backwards onto the rails. 

                I heard a clunk, which may have been my own head smashing onto the metal rails, and then something very heavy and sharp landed on top of me. The next thing I remember is waking up in a large, white room.

                "Elinor?" asked a gentle voice. "Elinor?"

                I opened my eyes onto a very blurry world, which slowly came into focus. The woman leaning over me looked rather like my mother. She was wearing a large purple blur, and there was a small brown blur that looked suspiciously like a table to her left.

                "Mum?" I asked, out of habit.

                "Oh, Elinor!" the woman sighed, and the worried look on her face was replaced by a smile.

                "Where am I, Mum?" I asked weakly.

                "St. Mungo's, darling," she told me.

                I pushed that to the back of my mind and tried to remember what had happened. A pressing question suddenly came to my attention.

                "Mum, can I still go to Hogwarts?" I asked. I still wasn't thinking in chronological order.

                The worried look returned. "Well…" she said hesitantly. "You've been in a coma, darling. The nurses had to use expert magic to put the pieces – to patch you up, I mean."

                "Has my letter come yet?" I asked, more insistently. I was worried too. The fall from the platform was slowly coming back to me. Expert magic meant that my own magic hadn't worked, and for someone who had never used magic before, life and death experiences always stimulated it. I was very worried indeed.

                I managed to turn my head and dizzily glance at the night-table next to Mum. There were no white envelopes with red seals sitting on it.

                "It's November 26th, now, dear," said my mother very kindly.

                I closed my eyes and tried not to cry. Despite my efforts, a tear squeezed out.

                I was a Squib. 


	2. Quidditch Notes

Squibbiness 

Disclaimer: Somewhere, probably in Britain at this moment, there is a woman named J. K. Rowling. She has written a series of books about a boy named Harry Potter. I am, for the time being, borrowing the general idea of her books to write a story about a girl named Elinor Crawley. I don't own anything you recognize from Harry Potter, and I own everything that you don't recognize from anywhere else.  

Chapter 2: Quidditch Notes 

                I must admit that neither my mother nor I were surprised. However, my father was a different story. He first went through denial, and then anger, and finally a mildly tortured form of acceptance. I was sorry for him, but even more so for myself.

                I was put into a strictly Muggle middle school, as my family believed that when fate declared one a Squib, there was nothing one could do to change it. News of the quickly emerging Squib-help-owls and courses were only muttered in passing by wizards on the dark side of Diagon Alley. Squibs were not beings that any decent witch or wizard wanted to associate with.

                No one except my immediate family ever knew that I was a Squib. I still acted like a proper young witch; appearing with my family at Diagon Alley during the summers and occasionally buying the odd trinket or scroll of parchment to keep up appearances. I told Midgie that I was going to a different school, and she naturally assumed that I meant Beauxbatons or some such. I never had the heart to correct her. My Muggle school, St. Catherine's, was a fairly nice place. I fit right it. Coming home to my seemingly Muggle but actually wizarding family made me feel like I was living two lives. Things got rather hard to keep straight: it was Puddlemere United with Raymond and Newcastle in class. I made quite a few friends, although they rarely came over to my house and often inquired why I wore bright blue and black scarves. There was a frightening incident at my twelfth birthday party – Dad accidentally spilled some Floo powder in the fireplace and flew off to someplace in Hogsmeade. My mother and I had a terrible job reassuring the girls that he was a magician (how little they knew!) in his spare time. Later on, I casually dropped a hint about the "secret door behind the fireplace," which took care of the remaining doubters.

                Most of my friends were fascinated with the odd baubles that I tended to carry around with me: my Remembrall, which I identified as a chemically altered snow globe, and some of the treats from Honeydukes, which I passed off as a byproduct of Mum's craze for health food stores. Meanwhile I continued to pore over both old and new spellbooks (mainly Ray's old texts) in hopes of somehow discovering that I was magical. I dabbled briefly in the fads and interests that swept through my school, but found the music rather boring after the Weird Sisters and couldn't be bothered to show more than a polite curiosity in Muggle movies. At times, my discomfort over being a Squib crept through the cracks of my busy life and I settled into depression. Mum and Dad responded to this in two ways: respectively, piano lessons and Quidditch.

                Mum was a musician at heart, though she had more strength in her little finger than musical talent. It had always been her dream to make me a musician, but my impending witchliness took precedence. My parents had been betting a lot on their children's magical abilities, and thus had only given us a brief Muggle elementary education. I took the piano lessons from a Miss Brown, a young college graduate who also taught voice. I knew nothing at all about the instrument, although I could read music fairly decently. I had learned to play the recorder as a child.

                My piano playing progressed rather slowly – I eventually learned that for the first year, I played at about the level of a six-year old child – but my passion for Quidditch grew rapidly. Of course I knew about Quidditch since I'd grown up in a wizarding family, but I wasn't that big on it. Dad had always been a fan, and he decided that the only way to relieve me of my depression was to buy tickets for every possible League game he could get. The more expensive ones, against the rest of Europe's teams, Dad steadfastly ignored. He believed that the British and Irish teams were the best in the world.

                I had been to a few games with Raymond before, but that had been when I was much younger. I recall that the first time Dad came home with the depression-curing tickets, I was studying.

                "Elinor," he said, slinging his briefcase (Dad was a saleswizard, and a profitable one at that) onto the kitchen table, "Guess what I've got!"

                "No idea, Dad," I said, looking up from my homework. It was a Wednesday evening, and I had an essay due the next day. 

                Dad reached into the pocket of his overcoat and drew out several flimsy orange pieces of paper. "Look here, Elinor!" he said, trying to drag my attention away from my neatly-written essay. I glanced up and frowned.

                "Aren't those…" I began, and Dad quickly finished.

                "Tickets to the Cannons' game!" he cried excitedly. "Tonight. Against the Montrose Magpies. There's no doubt about who'll win, but it's still a Quidditch game!"

                "Dad," I told him gently, "I've got homework. And I still have to practice the piano. Miss Brown keeps getting annoyed when I make excuses."

                He looked bitterly disappointed. "It's an evening game, Elinor. It won't be that long – only a practice, really. And afterwards they let you down onto the pitch."

                I sighed. I could tell that Dad had gone to a lot of trouble to get hold of the tickets. I closed my books with a snap and stood up. "Right," I said brightly, "When shall we go?"

                Little did I realize how much I would enjoy that game. The Magpies won, 640 to 90 points, and the Chudley Cannons were allowed the honour of showing the spectators about the Quidditch Pitch while the Magpies did victory loops overhead. I followed Dad as he dashed from hoop to hoop and admired the neatly trimmed grass, taking the occasional sip of my Butterbeer. It was a rather small pitch, which didn't really matter as the game was for charity. Dad and I had taken the train out of London to a deserted patch of grassland, where the pitch, disguised as a large barn, awaited us. The trip took about six hours there and another six back, but I didn't mind.

                It was the first time that I ever realized Quidditch players had personalities. I felt terrible for the Cannons as they moped around, pointing out the boundary lines and explaining how the Snitch was bewitched. I felt a thrilling sense of victory as the Magpies swooped down over our heads, hurling insults at the pitiful orange-robed losers. I suppose I was rather impartial back then, though the majority of the Quidditch crowd, including my own Dad, seemed to be cheering for the Magpies. I wondered if the Cannons would perform any better had they more fans, or even better advertising. I, like every other wizarding child, knew that they had lost almost continuously for the last century.

                When the Magpies finally landed, Dad dragged me over to congratulate them. So did most of the other remaining spectators. We ended up being shuffled over to one side, near a team member who was pulling off his gloves and eyeing the rest of the spectators with a palpable disgust.

                "Sir," gushed Dad, "What an amazing win!"

                "Hmm? Thanks," mumbled the man, turning and walking away. That was my first meeting with Mr. William Axeworthy, team beater and future Keeper. He would be famous in a few years, although no one realized it. 

                "Go get his autograph!" Dad said, pushing me forward. 

                "I haven't got a quill or paper –" I protested, but Dad shoved a small, red and gold bound book into my hand along with a ballpoint pen. I caught the title of the book out of the corner of my eye: _Quidditch Autographs._

                I walked those few steps to Mr. Axeworthy feeling terribly embarrassed. I was still very happy from watching the game, but I could sense that the man did not want to be bothered. A nagging sense of guilt prodded at me as I cleared my throat, but part of that guilt seemed very excited.

                "Er… excuse me, sir?" I asked nervously.

                Mr. Axeworthy turned around and glared at me as I held the autograph book out. "Could I have your autograph, please, if you don't mind?" 

                He snatched the pen and book out of my hands and flipped it open. Before he started scribbling, I noticed the expanse of white parchment that lay clean and un-written upon. The book was a gift from my father to me!

                "Who shall I make it out to?" grunted the Quidditch player.

                "Elinor Crawley, please," I said.

                "There," he shoved the book and pen back at me. I took hold of them quickly, and he must have noticed how nervous my manner was, for he softened a little.

                "Sorry," he said. "I've had a bad day. My daughter got into a fight at school."

                "Oh," I said. "Sorry about that."

                "Don't worry," he told me. He crossed his arms and stared down at me, frowning a little. "Did you enjoy the game?"

                I nodded. "Though," I said more hesitantly, "I think I know why the Chudley Cannons haven't done very well."

                "And why is that?" he asked, looking amused.

                "Everything – their tactics – they do is so obvious. They haven't got any confidence in themselves and so they resort to the most boring, well known strategies. I guess," I added, remembering that this was a pro-Quidditch player I was speaking with.

                To my great surprise, he did not laugh at me. "Interesting," he said thoughtfully. "You sound like you could have a future in Quidditch."

                I gaped at that, and then Mr. Axeworthy turned around and continued walking across the pitch to the locker rooms. "Thank you!" I called out breathlessly, and then I ran back to Dad.

                "The Magpies are so personable," Dad said cheerfully. "They'll always talk to you."

                "Hrmmm," I mumbled, thinking about what Mr. Axeworthy had said. "Thanks for the book, Dad," I said, only half paying attention to what I was saying.

                "You're welcome," he replied, and we slowly walked out of the pitch and down to the train station. 

                It was on the train ride back that I made one of the most important and long-lasting decisions of my life. Since I was a Squib, I had never really considered learning to fly a broomstick. The possibilities of what could happen to unmagical me if I ever got in a bad situation were too frightening. Plus, I had a feeling that bewitched though the brooms were, they didn't respond that well to Squibs. So, I made up my mind that although I could never play Quidditch, I would learn about it. Tactics, strategies, positions, the names of all the teams in the world – I would be an expert. 

                Eight years and two hundred and four Quidditch games later, it wasn't surprising that I knew everything. 


	3. Glorified Cauldron Bottoms

Squibbiness **Disclaimer**: **I do not own Harry Potter. I do not own the Chudley Cannons. I do not own Quidditch. In fact, I don't even play Quidditch. And I have no knowledge of any Harry-Potterish timeline that I should be following with this story. Basically, I know nothing. Therefore, I have nothing. Ergo, don't sue me. ** Chapter 3: Glorified Cauldron-Bottoms 

                As the senior promotional advertiser for the Chudley Cannons, I didn't have that much to live up to. As it was, I was probably the first person who had ever volunteered to be such a thing for the team. Nobody really wanted anything to do with the Cannons, but ever since the game on that long ago Wednesday eve, I had been inspired to somehow help them. However, if the Magpies or Wasps had needed me, I would have gone to them too. I found that as long as I was near Quidditch, I was happy. And senior promotional advertiser put me as close as I could get without being on the team.

                I attended every single Cannons game (paid for by the head Cannons office), every Quidditch and wizarding sports function or awards show, and I sat with the privileged at the World Cups. Getting to go to schools and bookstores to talk about Quidditch was only an added bonus.

                 In my opinion, "senior promotional advertiser" was a poor name for someone who did a great deal more. My job description not only listed me as someone who would "uphold the honour of the Chudley Cannons at all times" but a "proud supporter and promoter" and a "confidence booster in place of an absent coach or Captain." Thus, I needed to know a lot about Quidditch. I also had to write the occasional Cannon-loving article for the Quidditch League Magazine. I became pretty good friends with the team within my first few weeks on the job, as my superiors encouraged me to hang about with them and get to know them. That way, I would apparently better understand which products they should be endorsing.

                There was Lindsay Shell, Chaser. Possibly the most mean-spirited woman I have ever met, unless she was dealing with the Cannons. We were great friends. Lindsay and I used to insult other Quidditch teams to no end, especially if she was drunk. I didn't drink.

                Johnny Gorblug, Chaser. A very nice fellow – a twin, in fact. Apparently Cannon HQ considered taking both he and his twin as Beaters, but Johnny, who had played Beater all his life, turned out to have an amazing ability as Chaser. We got along famously until I accidentally trod on his cat. 

                Damson James, Chaser. Now, I'm not sure whether "Damson" is his real name or a nickname. HQ never told me. But I called him Damson, along with the rest of the team and the wizarding world, for that matter. Damson was the epitome of what a Chaser should be. He was tall, thin, and handsome. Dark and handsome. One of the fastest British fliers I have ever seen. I was sure that if I could drag him away from his fruit preserve endorsements, he would be a hit with the ladies.

                Jenna St. George, Keeper. I find it quite strange that Jenna ever got the position of Keeper. She was fairly petite, and very pretty too, not at all what one would expect for such a rough sport. But her small size enabled her to zoom around the hoops and catch the Quaffle nearly every time. She reminded me of an oversized orange pixie.

                Then there were the Beaters, Mark Wallace and Wallace Grimes. Not unexpectedly, they were known as Wallace and Wallace. The two were inseparable. Mark had been Wallace's best friend since the very first year of Hogwarts. Wallace had been the best man at Mark's wedding.  They wanted to form a band, something I found utterly absurd for two Quidditch players. However, after a series of odd and discouraging events, I found that their idea had quite a few possibilities.

                The last and final member of the team was Georgia Walsh, the Seeker. Her skills were about average, but nobody else would dare come near the Cannons. Seekers were in high demand those few years. Georgia had an overpowering personality. I must admit that we were never really that close, but we were always friendly.

                Perhaps someone may be wondering how I got along without magic? I got along just fine. No one knew, because I professed myself to be a Muggle lover. Now that You-Know-Who was dead and gone, it was fine to do so. Many wizards did. The Cannons accepted my odd quirks and treated me like any other witch. 

                Unfortunately, my safety was soon to be shattered. It all started when Percy Weasley, Head of the Department of Imports and Exports, brought in his new plan for cauldron bottoms.

                To me, cauldrons were not a necessity of life. Sadly, Percy Weasley aimed to make it that way. With a team of expert witches and wizards, Weasley assembled a new magical material that would prevent ninety-nine percent of cauldron-related accidents _and_ any fatalities inside the cauldron. There was no catch – the material was being mass-produced down in Scotland – and according to the wizarding wireless, the people loved it. Once Weasley announced that the material also adjusted itself to one's magical abilities, I started to suspect that I might be in trouble.

                Trouble decided to settle in more comfortably when my boss, Mr. Gogadille, manager of the Cannons, told me that to boost sagging ticket sales the Cannons had signed a contract to endorse the Weasley cauldrons for the next three years.

                As the senior member of the advertising team, I would naturally be expected to try out the cauldron at the next Cannons press junket. I was horrified.

                I briefly considered resigning but knew that I could not rely on my only other skill – piano playing – to make a living. I still adored the instrument, but I didn't have the motivation or extreme talent needed to make it in the big picture. Even the Weird Sisters hadn't managed to last more than a few years. Besides, I loved my job too much. 

                Finally, I resigned myself to one of three masterplans:

a. Bomb the cauldron-making plant.

b. Announce myself a Squib (not likely)

c. Learn magic.

Quite naturally, I was inclined towards the third item on my list. However, after a lengthy discussion with my brother, I decided that it was time, once and for all, to get the better of my inability to do magic.


	4. Keeping Out of Trouble

Squibbiness

**Disclaimer: Somewhere, across the ocean, lives a woman named J.K. Rowling. She has all of the rights to everything here that isn't mine - i.e. Elinor Crawley, Grulina Higgins-Furthingspell, Mr. Gogadille - you get the picture. I think, by now, most of you will be able to recognize official Harry Potter stuff for what it is! So, just remember, no copyright infringement intended on my part. Just enjoy. And read.**

**Chapter Four: Keeping Out of Trouble**

The main problem with Weasley's cauldrons was that they responded to your _own_ magic. Of course, I didn't have any magic – and it was unlikely that I would discover some amazing talent for divination or transfiguration in my mid-twenties. Weasley sent a series of owls to the Cannons HQ, detailing in a precise and extremely lengthy manner exactly what the endorsement meant and what the senior promotional advertiser would have to do at the unveiling ceremony. Apparently, my job involved laying both my hands on the side of the cauldron, waiting while it registered my level and aptitude for magic, and then waiting some more while it adjusted for my faults. Unfortunately, Weasley had had his designers make the cauldron colour receptive to magic – meaning that if I had some ability for magic, the cauldron would turn green; if I had a great deal of talent, it would turn red, and if I had none, it would turn bright yellow. That was the intense colour promoted by the cauldron makers. It quite disgusted me – I mean, what would happen to all of the students in Hogwarts and such schools who had hardly any decent magic? For instance, one of the secretaries over in the Ministry's department of Trivial Occurrences – Longbottom, I believe was his name – got into quite a bit of trouble with all the magical accidents he caused. There were quite a few write-ups in the paper about him.

I got in touch with Raymond as quickly as I could – my dear brother had gone to the equivalent of wizard university and was well on his way to becoming a top-notch Auror. This meant that if he had off-days, they were short and infrequent. It took me nearly a month to contact him – leaving only a few nerve-wracking weeks for me to come up with a plan.

"Elinor," he said when we finally established a fireplace-to-fireplace line, "Why don't you just resign from your position; senior what's-it-called-or-other. Nobody much notices what you do anyway."

I was furious and on the verge of throwing my dinner at his head (which would have been worse for me, since most of it would have fallen in the grate and left me the task of cleaning up burnt shepherd's pie), but I held back and tried to take deep, calming breaths. Not to much effect. "Ray, I can't resign! This is my life. Quidditch is my life. What would the others do? The team can hardly keep their minds on task with Coach telling them what to do; he's told me often enough that he wouldn't know what to do without me. I make sure that Damson goes and records his strawberry jam commercials, and that Lindsey doesn't drink herself to death, and that Wallace and Wallace don't spend _all_ their time playing weddings..."

"I get the point, Elinor," Ray said quickly, "Really, I do. But I don't see much point in you causing all this trouble for yourself. Why don't you just say that you have a previous engagement? This really isn't a big deal."

I paused, waving a forkful of shepherd's pie at him. "Of course it is!" Then I hesitated. Raymond did have a point – perhaps there was some way I could skive off? "Do you think that there is anything I can do?"

"Sure – have the other members of the adverts team try the thing out for you."

"But what about the continuing contract? It goes on for the next three years, Ray; I'm going to get caught dead."

"You'll be quite fine," my brother assured me. "Really, I don't know why you get so upset about silly things like these, Elinor. You have a good job, and you _do_ a good job. No one's going to sack you because you're a Squib."

"Don't say it out loud!" I hissed at him, glancing furtively around the room. "You don't know who could be listening."

"Come on, Elinor," said Ray, sighing impatiently. "It's been impossible to intercept a fireplace line for the last six years."

I sighed too. "Thanks, Raymond."

"You're welcome," he said, winking at me. "You'll be _fine_. Now I have to go – have another lecture to attend."

"Another one?" I asked, wrinkling my nose in distaste. "Haven't you finished all of those awful classes?"

"Have to keep on top of the times, you know." With that, he was gone, and my fire resumed its cheerful crackling in the grate.

I sat back in my chair, still feeling rather uneasy about the whole thing. I haven't mentioned that despite my lack of magic in any of its forms, I still had a particularly clever instinct. And as of that moment, my instinct was telling me that Ray's reasonable plan of action would not go off quite so well as we both hoped. Something was going to go wrong, and I had no idea what it would be.

It appeared in the most glamourous form it ever possibly could. _Witch Weekly_.

I arrived in my office at the CC Headquarters the next morning, fifteen minutes late. (I'd had a rather restless night.) Jenna wandered in, chewing thoughtfully on a Muggle donut and sipping a large and steaming mug of coffee. "Where'd you get those?" I asked her as I sorted through the pile of mail on my desk.

"Oh, from Mr. Gogadille," she said vaguely, slopping coffee on a pile of fan mail.

"He's into Muggle food, now, is he?"

"I don't think he had any breakfast." We both grinned. It was a long-running joke that Mr. Gogadille's wife often refused to make her husband breakfast – he had once complained about having bacon and eggs every day, and so, periodically, she would send him packing without any food. So our poor boss was sent running to Muggle coffee shops, and he was usually kind enough to bring along enough food for the entire Chudley Cannons team (both behind-the-scenes and on-the-pitch).

"What's that?" Jenna had noticed a bright purple envelope that was glowing slightly beneath the rest of the mail on my desk. I picked it up and flipped it over, checking the return address.

"Something from the Witchly Publishing Corporation," I said, raising my eyebrows.

"What do they do?"

"Some newsletter or other, I expect," I said, slitting the envelope with a ragged fingernail. A thin, precisely folded letter fell out into my hand. The paper was a lighter, but still complimentary shade of purple, and as I unfolded it, I saw that the writing was framed with golden violets. "Fancy, eh?"

Jenna came around the side of my desk and I think she was just as shocked as I was at what the letter said.

_Dear Ms. Crawley:_

_We at **Witch Weekly** are running a new series of feature articles on Wonderful Witches of Our Time. After much deliberation, we selected a group of witches we felt best represented the success and influence of the female half of the magic world. YOU have been SELECTED! We feel that your contributions toward the British Quidditch community have been astounding and very much praiseworthy, and with your permission, we would like to feature our second Wonderful Witches article on YOU! Please send an owl back to Witch Weekly Publications, c/o Witchly Publishing Corporation, with your response. We look forward to hearing from you!_

_Sincerely,_

_Grulina Higgins-Furthingspell, Editor of Witch Weekly Magazine_

I dropped the letter on the table and turned to stare at Jenna. "Well, that's a surprise," I mumbled.

"I know," said Jenna, taking another bite of her donut. "Who would want to interview _you_?"


	5. Kissed By Fame

Squibbiness

**Disclaimer: Not counting any mentions of _Witch Weekly_, _the Weird Sisters, Hogwarts, Muggles, Squibs, the Ministry of Magic, Voldemort, Death Eaters, _and/or _the Chudley Cannons_, this chapter is entirely mine. So are the characters. However, since it is set in the happy-go-lucky world of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter, I'm afraid I'll have to relinquish my rights to everything except the original characters and plot. Thank you, and eat fish.**

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**Chapter Five: Kissed By Fame**

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My interview with Grulina Higgins-Furthingspell (for she was the one who interviewed all "Wonderful Witches of Our Time" selections) was one of the more excruciating experiences that I have had. Grulina was waiting for me in her office when I arrived, and I was ushered through the halls of the Witch Weekly nerve center with great haste. I passed an unfathomable number of cubicles, frosted glass doors, and photographs of wizards and witches with unbelievably white teeth. My guide – a rather frazzled looking elderly witch, who introduced herself to me as, "Cherry, dear – because of the hair" (quite red) – finally halted in front of a particularly large and imposing set of double frosted glass doors with the name _Grulina_ emblazoned on them in large cursive letters.

"Here you are, then, miss," said Cherry the tour-guide. "Just knock on the door. Have a lovely interview!"

Before I could thank her for guiding me through the mess of hallways and offices, the old lady was gone. I knocked on the right-hand door gingerly, wondering if an interview with the editor of the wizarding world's most popular women's magazine was really the best thing for me to do.

I stared at the door nervously, and was about to knock again when a sleepy looking pair of eyes opened right below the _u_ of Grulina. A mouth followed suit.

"Your name, dear?" asked the mouth as the eyes gazed at me balefully.

"Elinor Crawley," I replied brusquely, trying to mask my surprise. "I'm here for – "

"An interview with Madam Higgins-Furthingspell," said the mouth. The eyes blinked, their lids coming down heavily and sliding back up reluctantly. "That is correct. Please, enter."

"Thank you," I managed to say as the doors folded back, the glass shimmering.

I stepped through the doors, and somehow they unfolded themselves and shut behind me. Madam Higgins-Furthingspell's office, I thought, was quite the to-do. Bright green gauze curtains fluttered over an open window, trailing down on to the curry-coloured shag carpet that seemed to have flooded the floor. A huge purple desk sat beneath the window, small stars gleaming off its sides and edges. Two huge plants sat on the desk, waving their leaves at me ominously. And directly between them sat the editor of Witch Weekly.

At first glance, I would have said that Grulina Higgins-Furthingspell was a middle-aged lady, what with her wrinkles and straw-like gray hair; a middle-aged lady who was trying to stave off the inevitable and cling to her youthful beauty with a mass of thick, pore-clogging makeup. She looked like a lizard when she blinked – like the Cheshire eyes on her door, her eyelids were so heavy with makeup that she seemed to be having trouble holding her eyes open.

However, as I later discovered from several of the junior advertisers back at the Cannons HQ, Grulina was in her early twenties and had suffered a most unfortunate accident in her teens – while at one of the annual witch beauty pageants, she had had the misfortunate to make an enemy of quite a prominent beauty consultant – to make a long story short, she had left the beauty pageant doomed to spend the next ten years as a forty-five year old woman. There was nothing anyone could do about the curse, not even the Ministry of Magic, although I attribute the Ministry's lack of aid to the return of Voldemort and his Death Eaters, which had taken place around that time. Grulina had set herself to the task of making a life as a young woman in an old body, and her natural aptitude for success had somehow climaxed in the office of head editor at Witch Weekly. I don't know if this was partially behind her odd taste in office furnishings, but regardless, it was none of my concern.

"Sit down, do sit down," she said as soon as the plants on her desk had shifted their leaves enough for her to see me standing by the door. "You must be Elinor," she said pleasantly.

"Yes, I am," I answered, stepping forward awkwardly. I was about to stick out my hand for a handshake when I remembered that wizards and witches did things differently; no silly Muggle customs allowed. A wave of nervousness burst over me as I realized what a fool I would have made of myself. "Very pleased to meet you, ma'am."

"Please," said she, "Call me Madam Higgins-Furthingspell. And have a seat, dear," she said as she waved her wand at me. A large, obnoxiously fluffy armchair popped out of the air in front of me. I sat down and attempted to cross my legs as delicately as I could. I've always had trouble crossing my legs; it simply doesn't come naturally to me. Madam Higgins-Furthingspell watched my efforts with obvious amusement and, I suppose, took pity on me, for she soon engaged me in conversation.

"I'm quite excited about this new series on Wonderful Witches," she said to me.

"Yes, lovely isn't it?" I managed to reply as I succeeded in slipping one leg over the other. It bounced back, most unfortunately, and I settled for sitting with both feet on the floor. "How many articles have you published so far?"

"Oh, just two," she said, "One on the drummer for the Weird Sisters – a wonderful lady, of course; that band has done _so_ much for the musical world."

_Chopin! _I thought. _Bach! Beethoven! Bartok! Cream! Help me!_

"And the other?" I inquired, while staring in fascination at the lurid green on Madam H-F's nails. It looked as if she had dipped her fingertips in potently radioactive slime. She went on to tell me about some Hogwarts professor or other, but I must confess – my attention was elsewhere. I'd begun to wonder how long it would take the editor of Witch Weekly – an astute witch if there ever was one, or so they said – to figure out that I was a complete and utter Squib. Not even a witch. And I wasn't _that_ well known, so I still couldn't figure out why anyone would want to interview me.

"So," she said conversationally, "Let's talk about you."

"All right," I answered, staring down at my knees. They were rather knobbly, even through my dress pants.

"How long, exactly, have you worked for the Chudley Cannons?" she said, snapping her fingers. A notebook fell out of midair onto her desk, and she shook her arm over it – a quill slid out of her sleeve. Very prepared, she was.

"About two years now, ma'am." I relaxed. Talking about the team was the one thing that could get me to relax, anywhere, and anyhow. I suspect that if I had been clinging to the edge of a precipice on Mount Everest, the rescue team would only have to ask me to recite the team's annual stats and I would be no trouble for them at all to pull to safety (or to drop into the gorge beneath the precipice, of course; I tell you – I probably wouldn't even notice). "I knew when I was fourteen years old that all I'd ever wanted to be was a Quidditch person. I've got no skills whatsoever with a broom, though." There, I thought. That had sorted some issues out quite nicely.

"No talent on a broom?" asked Grulina, smiling in a nauseating way. "I'm sure that's not true. You must be quite good indeed to show such a love for a flying sport."

"No, really," I said, laughing awkwardly, "I'm terrible. I've nearly killed myself a hundred times."

"Oh?" said Grulina, leaning forward and tapping her nails on her desk. "Like what?"

I swallowed. "Oh, you know; hundreds of times. Falling off brooms, tripping over brooms, dropping several stories on brooms...So I stuck to being a promotional advertiser. Close contact with the sport, you know, but not close contact with a hospital!" My laugh sounded as if several frogs were being strangled in my throat.

"Tell me about these – near death experiences," she said, her voice chillingly cold.

"Oh, well, I – um, er –" I paused. My mother had always said that I had had an active imagination as a child, so here was the time to put it to the test. "There was this one time, back in school – I got ahold of a broom around my thirteenth birthday and went for a midnight flight. Of course I could barely stay on, even with what my father'd taught me, so I hit a tree first off. They patched me up good in the hospital, though."

"I see," she sounded disappointed. "That was all?"

"Well – " I hesitated. Something deep inside, rather like courage but more like idiocy, took hold of me and refused to let go. "I didn't let go of the broom after it hit the tree and it dragged me up through the leaves and out into the sky. I was so terrified; after all, being in your nightgown on a broom when there's no moon – did I mention there was no moon – is pretty frightening. I ran into a flock of Canada geese, which were somehow in the area, and they – suffice to say they were not pleased. Those things have really sharp beaks. But, as I said, the hospital was good. You can hardly tell where they sewed my ear back on. At last I managed to return home to my dorm, after avoiding a series of telephone poles and a group of late night bird wizards. Of course, I ran straight into the arms of the Matron."

She looked very, very pleased. "Excellent!" she said, and clapped her hands. "This will be perfect fodder for the masses. They're going to love you."

"So I can go now?" I inquired eagerly, all set to hop up out of the armchair and flee Grulina Higgins-Furthingspell's office.

"Oh no," she shook her head sternly, "Of course not. Sit back down. You mentioned school, I believe? What school did you attend? Hogwarts? You must have been brilliant at magic to have been so successful, Miss Crawley."

I am quite sure that my jaw nearly dropped. It's time for you to make a decision, I thought firmly. Now is the time – are you a Squib or aren't you a Squib? I admit to sliding out of that question. My rationale was something along the lines of – I've already told so many lies today, why not a few more?

"Not school exactly," I hastily invented, "Rather a private sort of school. One of my mother's friends taught her own children at home – she was a fully certified teaching witch – and invited me to come along. I stayed at her home during the year, since she lived some distance away, but I came home to my parents – Raymond was at Hogwarts – on the weekends."

"I thought you said there was a Matron?" she said, looking confused.

"Matron? Did I say Matron?" I frowned, puzzled. "You must have misunderstood me – I'm sorry, I called my mother's friend Matron. That was, in fact, her name. Matron Jonson."

"So you were quite a brilliant little witch, eh?" she asked cheerfully, bending her quill. "I was right, then. You even had to be homeschooled so as not to make the other children look bad."

"No, no, no," I interrupted quickly, "I was an awful student. My workmanship was shoddy. I could hardly do spells for the life of me. They kept me out of school so I wouldn't embarrass myself. My magic came and went in great waves – never steady. In fact – " I moved my chair a little closer, and bent towards her conspiratorially, "_I never took my NEWTs_," I whispered.

She gasped. "Oh, Merlin!" Then she plastered a look of pity on her face. "But you've done so well for yourself – is that even possible - ?"

"Yes," I said smugly, leaning back in my chair and for once in my life, managing to cross my legs gracefully. "I've always shown an aptitude for Muggle business techniques, and I just put those to work."

"Amazing," said Grulina, scribbling rapidly with her quill. Being a twenty-something woman trapped in middle age certainly had not interfered with her writing skills. She'd already amassed at least two pages on me. I felt more confident than I had in weeks – years, I suspect. I was ready to tell her everything; at least, to tell her everything that wasn't really true and related to me in a non-Squibbish aspect.

The interview lasted about another half hour, upon the commencement of which Grulina thanked me for coming to Witchly Publications, told me that she had enjoyed interviewing me, and assured me that I would see my interview in the very next issue of _Witch Weekly_. Then she had Cherry politely escort me out of her office and back down through myriad hallways and corridors of the building.

"How was it, miss?" asked Cherry kindly as we reached my exit point (I was taking the tube back to the C.C. Headquarters).

"It went very well, thank you," I told her. "Thanks for all of your help."

She smiled. "I look forward to reading your interview."

Her words rang ominously in my mind as I exited the centre. As soon as my shoes hit the sidewalk, I felt my knees buckle. They turned to jelly as I stood there, people rushing by me on either side, and I had to push my way to the wall and collapse against it. I leant there, hyperventilating, as I took in the last hour of my existence.

I had told her that I'd studied magic privately, because I was terrible at casting spells.

I had said that I'd been studying magic privately.

I had said that I'd been studying magic.

I had said that I could do magic.

I think, if it hadn't been for the rude man who had cycled past me on an expensive looking bike and nearly run over my toes, I would have fainted on the spot. As it was, the only intelligible thought in my mind was that the new issue of _Witch Weekly_ came out in two weeks.


	6. Limelight

Squibbiness

**Disclaimer/Author's Note: **I am not J.K. Rowling. Not only is she older than me and British, but she also has different-coloured hair and, in all likelihood, doesn't have the faintest idea who Elinor Crawley is. (Someone from Vanity Fair, maybe?) Everything you see here that screams, "I was in Harry Potter!" is from one of the dozen or so Harry Potter books you can find in your local bookstore/supermarket/drug store. The rest of it, including characters whom you wouldn't be able to find in either the Potter-verse or the real world, belong to me. Mine. So does the story arc, I guess, a.k.a. the plot. Now, if you're still interested in reading this after such a long hiatus AND such a long disclaimer, then kudos to you! You have much better staying power than I do! And I kind of apologize for not updating. I had writer's block, which apparently doesn't really exist…it's just a construct…but hey, lots of things can happen in two years and a month.

And now, onto the story…

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**Chapter Six: Limelight**

I've always been told not to wear pink. Pink just isn't your colour. That's what they say in clothing shops. Clashes with your hair. Washes you out. Makes your nose look red. Why don't you try this lovely shade of blue?

I was standing on a stage in front of five hundred assorted Quidditch players, officials, famous people, and pressgang members, and naturally, I was wearing pink.

I must admit that I didn't plan on wearing pink. Originally I'd set aside a very decent set of black dress robes with orange trim (to emphasize my connection to the Cannons), but somehow they had shrunk in the wash. Don't ask me how. I've worn them several times before. I suppose I shouldn't have worried so much about the tomato juice stain on the left sleeve. They were black, after all. It seems rather irrelevant now.

I won't say that Jenna and Georgia forced me to wear pink. Rather, they wrangled me into wearing it. Finding high quality dress robes on short notice – because all the press _ever_ cares about is who-you're-wearing when you attend a high class function – is well nigh impossible. I told Jenna about my little accident with the washing machine ("I told you not to use those Muggle thingamajigs," she said) yesterday morning, and Georgia, who happened to be in the room (to grab one of the donuts Mr. Gogadille brought for breakfast, again), said that her sister had a cousin-by-marriage who used to work for _Sorceri_, the U.K.'s premier purveyor of fancy witch's wear. A couple of head-in-the-grates and one phone call later, we got in touch with Martha, the cousin. She assured me that she had just the thing. According to her, it was perfect for this year's fashion trend. I don't know much about fashion trends, but I do know they tend to look a bit less fashionable on me.

She brought the robes over to HQ this morning. I was going to head to the cauldron-bottom-fancy-thing straight after work (although I briefly considered following Lindsay's advice, eschewing my own good sense and heading straight to the nearest pub), so they stayed in the clothing bag, hanging from a peg on the back of my office door for the better part of the day.

I opened the package after the team finished practice. I'd timed everything so that I would be able to get changed and sneak out of HQ while the team were still in the locker-rooms, but somehow they managed to shower and appear, fresh and cheerful as anything, in my office a few minutes before I even got there.

"Hurry up and put them on," said Lindsay.

"Oh, do! Let's see them!" said Jenna.

"Martha has the best taste in robes," said Georgia.

I swallowed, wishing my mouth hadn't suddenly gone dry, and peeked outside the door of my office. Johnny, Damson, Wallace, and Wallace were standing there with great big grins on their faces, as if they were expecting to have a jolly good time. I shut the door on them as loudly as I could.

"Okay." With trembling fingers I unhooked the package from the peg and laid it across my desk. The robes were in one of those standard zippered clothing bags. I unzipped it, almost reverentially, and got my first glimpse.

I swear they were so bright that they were glowing.

"Oh, Elinor," said Jenna as I lifted them from the clothing bag, "I do hope they fit you."

I glared at her, shoved the robes back into the bag, and marched out of my office and down the hall into the women's washroom. Once there, I got changed and inspected myself in the mirror. They fit. Fitting wasn't the problem.

They had little_ bows_ and _hearts_ all round the neckline. And _pink lace_ along the hem of the skirty bit. My black-and-orange robes hadn't even had a skirt. They'd been a fully functional pants-and-overrobe set, until the washer got at them. Not for the first time, I wished that I could whip out a wand and make some wiggly gesture that would excise the bows, hearts, and lace from existence. In this universe, at least.

I wrapped the clothing bag around my shoulders, covering the dress robes up as best as I could, and left the washroom. I set off down the hallway at a run. Damson started guffawing before I'd even made it past him.

"Look at me! I'm hideous!" I shouted at Georgia as soon as I was back in my office. "What the hell did you mean when you said Martha had good taste in clothes?"

"It's quite nice, actually," said Georgia, tilting her head to one side and surveying me up and down. "A bit frilly, but gives you a lovely shape."

"It's pink," I moaned, making a quick transition to the despairing stage. "Pink. The one colour everybody's always told me to avoid. Neon pink."

"Pink is the new black," suggested Jenna. She averted her eyes when I looked at her.

"Pink has _never_ been the new black," I said. "They'll be able to see me from a mile away."

Which was precisely what I didn't want. All eyes on the Squib.

"Here," said Jenna, "I'll get rid of the hearts for you, if you want. They're a bit much, aren't they?" She glanced at Lindsay.

"I don't know," said Lindsay, wrinkling her nose, "I think they rather suit you, Elinor."

I narrowed my eyes, opened my mouth, and Georgia quickly intervened. "And the bows. And the lace. Without all that you'll feel much more comfortable."

I acquiesced. They did a number of fancy things with a wand and suddenly I found myself wearing a set of dress robes that were merely pink and ugly, not pink and hideously horrible. Children would only have nightmares when they saw me, instead of requiring therapy for the rest of their lives.

"I think that's about as good as it's going to get," said Jenna, adjusting my collar. "They are quite form-fitting, at least."

"Pink makes me look fat," I said, tiredly and irritably.

"Ah, well," Lindsay grinned at me. "It's not like you're going there to find yourself a husband. You have a job to do, woman! Step up to the task! Senior promotional advertisers aren't supposed to look good!"

We all raised our eyebrows at her.

Damson was still laughing when I left HQ. I suspect he laughed all the way home. Wallace and Wallace cracked jokes about (respectively) Cinderella, cupcakes, and the Queen's two-piece solid-colour suits all the way to the door. Johnny had disappeared, but I could hear a wild, hooting noise – rather like what I've always imagined the Canada goose would sound like – coming from the men's washroom.

The press junket was nothing like what I'd been led to imagine. Rather than being a huge press conference, it was set up as a fancy dinner, with a couple of speakers, a meal, and then disaster – I mean, the cauldron demonstration. Afterwards there would be live music and some kind of dessert buffet. It was all very commercial. The Chudley Cannons weren't the only organization endorsing Weasley's cauldrons – various music groups, wizarding businesses, and a nice sprinkling of generally famous persons were also rubberstamping their seal of approval on the Clever Cauldron™. I think Percy Weasley could have at least come up with a more creative name than that. Then again, he invented the silly thing. That says loads about his IQ.

Both the press and some select members of the general public had been invited to the party. It really was just a party. Other famous people had invited themselves along, too, including Grulina Higgins-Furthingspell (who mumbled a discreet, "Hello," when she walked past me and then remained a good twenty feet away at all times for the remainder of the evening), and a couple of the higher profile Quidditch players. Viktor Krum had come all the way from Bulgaria just to boost his sagging profile. He wasn't doing so well, these days; the fame and adoration he'd had through the early part of his career had diminished after the Daily Prophet had published an article about his fling with a fifteen-year-old Bulgarian girl. Had a bit of thing for younger women, he did. He was hulking around the edges of the room, brooding over one of the many punch bowls and making eyes at the female reporters.

Puddlemere player Oliver Wood was floating around, too, looking distinctly puzzled. Mr. Gogadille went through a phase where he was convinced that Wood was the one thing the Cannons needed to bring them back into the lime- (or should I say orange?) light. He even tried to set up an interview with Wood, who declined – good move, I think, since he's just been drafted for the English World Cup team. Every time I've seen Wood, he has looked puzzled. I think it's something that comes naturally to him.

I found myself a corner where I could clutch my orange juice and try not to look too conspicuous. With all of the people wandering about, I was surprised that Weasley's company hadn't invited the whole team to come along. It seemed to me that Jenna and Damson would have enjoyed this much more than me – Lindsay would have headed straight to the open bar – and it would have raised their profiles significantly, too. Reporters were darting all over the place with their cameras and recording devices (I can never remember what they're called. I find Muggle Dictaphones complicated, so don't even get me started on wizarding ones), asking what people thought the Clever Cauldron™ would look like, or how they were enjoying the evening, or if they had any new albums/books/mergers that they wanted to talk about – and who they were wearing, of course. So far, all of the reporters had avoided me. May I mention that this could be due to overexposure? After all, I'd only just recently been featured in Witch Weekly. The issue had come out two days ago. Grulina hadn't put me on the cover, but there were about four pages devoted to "The Girl Who Flies With Geese," accompanied by a tiny picture of someone who looked vaguely like my grandmother. Grulina (or whoever had written the article for her) had obviously developed a thesis relating geese and early traumatic broomstick experiences to my current career as a Quidditich specialist. Anything over two pages is pretty significant in Witch Weekly. I bet she was regretting having published the article after seeing my dress robes.

I had received a few of letters from people after the magazine came out – two, actually, and both were from women who wanted to know if I could get Damson's autograph for them – preferably with a piece of his clothing. I tossed both into the rubbish bin. What I was actually wondering was if people would recognize me after I went up on stage and tested out the cauldron. If my current level of non-existence persisted, then I suspected I might actually make it back to my normal life unscathed.

I had given up hope on my idea of learning how to do magic. In the previous two weeks, I had tried out three different learn-it-yourself, Squibbiness-Be-Gone courses, and none of them had made the slightest difference. I hadn't spoken to Raymond for several days now, either. But apart from the pink dress robes, I really wasn't feeling all that bad. In hindsight, I had exaggerated the problematic nature of my situation. I was going to be fine. No one would ever know that I was a Squib.

That was until Oliver Wood dragged a group of reporters over to me and announced, between gulps of wine from a plastic cup, "There she is! The girl who flies! Apparently she's fantastic on a broomstick!"


End file.
